A Postcard from Ushuaia!

There is a palpable excitement in the air.  Our ship has just come in to shore and off loaded its load of travellers who have just completed their trip to Antarctica.  They are milling around the lobby where the rest of us are waiting for our turn to board the ship.

I get chatting to one of the passengers who shares a few titbits of her journey with me, and my level of excitement rises.  I hear snatches of conversation from the other passengers also waiting in the lobby.  I get the feeling that many of my fellow travellers are hardcore too.  People who share my passion for travel, discovery and exploration at a very basic level. 

We have chosen to be on an expedition ship, a smaller boat with just a hundred passengers.  Not for us the big cruise boats that just sail past Antarctica.  We will go on shore, do landings from a little zodiac and set foot on places like South Georgia, the Antarctic Peninsular and the Falkland Islands. 

I can hardly wait.  I feel like the little kid who couldn’t get to sleep on Christmas eve, wondering what Santa was going to bring this year.  I remember staring up at the sky, wondering if I would be so lucky as to see the reindeer.  Even back then, as a little child, I longed to discover the unknown. 

I have longed for this trip for as long as I can remember.  If you know me, then you know how much I have wanted to travel to all seven continents, before my 50th birthday, which is now looming nastily on the not so distant horizon :).  In a few days, all going well, I would have accomplished that dream. 

It is amazing that I will get to spend both Christmas and New Years on the boat.  It will be fantastic to be so far away from the usual hype, the rush to buy presents, the insane madness that always precedes this time of year. Christmas has become so predictable!  I have always found it to be such a contradiction from that birth in a simple manger.  I wonder why your average Christian has never thought to question how Christmas is celebrated and chosen to do something a little different from the norm? 

Away in a manger, no crib for his bed.The little Lord Jesus, lay down his sweet head.

I know that I will be in a place so beautiful, so peaceful and so amazingly spiritual.  To me it will be just how I have always my Christmas to be.  Experiencing a real connection with the Universe, far away from the horrible commercialism that seems to define it, in our world today. 

My journey here has already brought me a new friend in Angela, my room mate here in Ushuaia.  She is an American traveller, with whom I connected instantly because of our shared passion for travel, discovery and conversation.   Together, we have explored this amazing little town called Ushuaia, in Argentina, at the bottom of the South American continent and we can’t wait to board that ship…to finally get to Antarctica.

Ushuaia is fringed with snow capped mountains and feels like a frontier town to me.  The snow flakes were falling as my place touched down, and I had to remind myself, it was still summer here!  Oh my gosh..I wonder what winter is like in Antarctica!!

(The noise you just heard was Angela letting out a whoop of delight as we walk the streets.  Nobody even turns around to look at us!  She assures me it will not be her last.  I love her enthusiasm and passion for travel. No wonder we connected instantly)

We are walking the street toward the water to look for our boat, anxious and excited for 3.30 pm to get here.  That’s when we go on board!  I have heard there no WIFI, so it is unlikely I can post to the blog till I get back on shore, early January.  It will be good to have a break from the internet, and just truly connect with the world outside me. Be one with the Universe.  Please stay tuned though, and do write to me and tell you what your Christmas and New Years was like.  I am anticipating that mine will be…very WHITE!!

 “After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.”  Richard Dawkins

A Blessed Christmas & Happy New Year!

Greetings from Ushuaia & the tip of South America!  The snow is lightly falling as I sit down to write my Christmas message, snug in the warmth of my couch in the hotel reception.  I am here in Argentina, in one of the most remote places on earth, about to embark on my ultimate dream; an adventure of a lifetime!  In 2 days time I will shortly board the ship that will take me to my final continent, Antarctica, where I will spend a White Christmas and see in the New Year.  I would then have accomplished my goal of spending time on all seven continents before I turned 50!

When I reflect back on 2010, I think it has been one of the happiest years of my life.  Most of you have followed my journey via my blog, so I don’t have to recount where I’ve been and what I’ve done. 

I am incredibly thankful for this experience.  The amazing places I discovered will forever live in my memory.  The wonderful friendships I forged will be continued into the future.  I am also grateful to the many local people who shared their stories with me, along this journey.  The interactions I had with the people I met along the way enabled this experience to be all the more special. 

I wanted this year to be  one where I challenged myself to live outside my comfort zone.  I have certainly achieved that and in so doing discovered an inner sense of peace as well as a confidence to know, I can do whatever I set my mind to. 

I want to thank all of you, my friends and family for keeping in touch with me and for your support.  You have been there for me during the hard times and come along with me on my journey during this, my special year.  I have appreciated your emails, the messages on my wall, the numerous Skype chats as well as the comments on my blog.  I have appreciated your feedback and am grateful there were people out there who travelled this journey with me and enjoyed my writing.

The story continues and I hope you will stay tuned.  I am not sure what internet facilities I will have on the boat.  If there are none, it may be 3 weeks before you see the next post.  I will do my best to make Antarctica come alive for you.

I would like to say have a wonderful holiday season with your near and dear ones.  Thank you for the messages I have already received.  I hope to catch up with all of you in the New Year.  Do drop me a line when you have time.  I love hearing from all of you.

Merry Christmas.  Happy New Year

Travelbug62

A Postcard from London!

I arrive in London and bring a few rays of sunshine with me, a rarity in these parts during winter.  I am here to spend a few days with my cousin, Sushie, (or Sue as she is known here) who I have not seen in years.  It is also an opportunity for me to get to know her husband Shanil, who I had only met briefly when he visited Australia some years ago.  Sushie and I aren’t quite sure how long its been, but it’s probably more than 15 years since we last met in Sri Lanka. 

Sushie is now a qualified doctor in the field of Chemical Pathology.  She has taken a couple of days off work to spend with me and show me around!

It had been snowing in London last week, so I am lucky to find a bit of sunshine to welcome me.  Northern European winters aren’t exactly my cup of tea.  I arrive on Thursday in time for lunch, which Sushie has kindly prepared for me.

We are excited to see each other after so long.  We tuck into our food, chat and catch up and go out for a bit of classical music in the evening.  It is a large orchestra and a nice change from anything I have done so far.  Shanil was lucky to obtain some complimentary tickets for the concert and we have an enjoyable evening, sipping wine and enjoying the music.  This is far more civilized than I’ve been in a long time!   I just wish I had my leather jacket and my nice boots :)!

Sushie has taken Friday off work so we wake up late and spend time on Skype catching up with my family before heading out to the shops.  I have a few purchases to make before my trip to Antarctica.  Saturday, is much the same.  A lazy day and a nice English Breakfast later, we do a bit more shopping before going out for a nice Indian curry feed.

The shops are crowded and I am reminded what this time of year is like at home.  Manic.  It is a bit of a culture shock to be in shopping mall and to be jostling for space with the crowds hell bent on their Christmas shopping.  I’m glad I have this year off!

My time in London just consists of food, rest, chats and shopping…just what the doctor ordered after the last few months of hectic travel. 

Sadly, my visit to London is over all too soon. Shanil and Sushie drive me to the airport and as I wave goodbye to my cousin, I realise my great Antarctic Adventure is about to begin!

 ~ The fool wanders, a wise man travels. ~ Thomas Fuller

Istanbul & The Things that Define It

We spend two more glorious days exploring and discovering Istanbul. 

We walk through the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar, stopping to chat to the locals and sip tea with the carpet salesman. 

Unlike the carpet salesman in the west, they are not aggressive or care that we have no interest in purchasing a carpet.  We sip apple tea and get yet another lesson in carpet identification and Turkish hospitality!I love the colour and smells of the Spice Bazaar, where spices sit alongside Turkish delight and the vendors are happy for us to try before we buy!

We walk through local neighbourhoods, stopping once more to chat.  We’ve found the Turkish people to be extremely friendly, even when they have no understanding of English.

The Grand Bazaar is bigger and busier than the Spice Bazaar and here we see high fashion jostling for space with just about everything else!  Once again we are invited for apple tea.  When I tell our host I am writing a blog, he informs us he has been written up in the National Geographic traveller magazine!  Once we’ve had our fill of the bazaars, we take a tram across town to cross the bridge and sample fresh fish at the fish market and watch the boats on the water.  It is a beautiful day to relax and enjoy the best that Istanbul has to offer.

There goes the call to prayer again..

You can’t escape the call to prayer in this city. Istanbul is dotted with mosques but people here seem to be a lot less conservative than their counterparts in Asia and Africa.  While face coverings are still seen, they appear to be a lot rarer than in the rest of the Middle East.  We pop into another mosque, and lie on the floor, enjoying its quietness and grandeur.    We top off a brilliant evening by attending a Sufi Dance.  The whirling dervishes make me dizzy and I wonder how they master this amazing art!  The Sufi dancing is a physical active type of meditation.  The dervishes aim to reach the source of perfection by abandoning their egos and personal desires & by listening to music and focussing on God.  They spin their bodies in repetitive circles which is meant to imitate the planets of our solar system orbiting the sun!

We meet up with our fellow travellers after the concert for a last farewell.  We say goodbye to Em who is headed home to OZ. 

The next day, I am joined at breakfast by Tuncay, a young Turkish man, visiting friends at our hostel.  We chat for awhile.  He invites me and my friends to visit his..guess what…carpet shop!!  More drinks of apple tea and chats to his family before we escape to spend our last day in Istanbul visiting the cistern. The Basilica cistern is an amazing historical feature of Istanbul.  This cistern had the capacity to store 100,000 tonnes of water and is built on a square area of 9,800 sq.m.  It is a beautiful place to visit and photograph but the silence is broken by a visiting group of school kids, whose voices echo in the dim silence and disturb the peace!  I’ve got to ship a few things home and we spend a fair bit of time looking for the post office.  Yvonne and Victor help me with my mail  before we go in search of wontons.  After weeks of being on the road and dining on humus, both Victor and Yvonne are ready for some Chinese.  Despite having an address and a location on a map searching for wontons is almost as daunting as searching for the post office! 

We stand on the street, map in hand, looking quite lost when a kind Turkish man stops to help.  He calls his partner and spends a lot of time trying to make sure we find our wontons.  As he leaves, he flicks us his card and says, ‘Google me, go find out who I am’.  Intrigued, we look him up.  Rossi Barbarossa, the kind stranger who helped us find wontons in Istanbul, is a famous fashion designer!

It is finally time to say goodbye, to Istanbul and my friends Yvonne and Victor.  We have had an incredible time on our journey in the Middle East and we will definitely catch up in OZ.  For now, Victor and Yvonne will head to Beirut while I go off to London..  "There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country.  A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo.  Even a bicycle goes too fast." -  

Paul Scott Mowrer

Discovering Aya Sofia from a Different Angle!

Yvonne and I are wondering through Aya Sofia in complete excitement.  This mosque that was once a church, is a photographer’s dream and we both feel inspired to think outside the square. 

I had wanted my second day in Istanbul to be different.  I wanted to meet and chat with the locals of this amazing city.  I wanted to capture some of the beauty of this city and finally, I feel we have come to a place that inspires us both.

Yvonne and I have connected at many levels on this journey through the Middle East.  We are both migrants to Australia, having spent our formative years in conservative cultures yet chosen to live life in an unconventional way.  We share a love for photography, travelling, discovery & food and we are both professionals.  Yvonne is a optometrist and together we seem to create an energy that attracts people to our lives while on the road.  It happened in Nigde at the local market and it happened today at Aya Sophia.

We take turns lying on the floor, trying to photograph each other and the beautiful chandeliers that hang from the ceiling.  While in  this strange position, fellow travellers stop to see what we are up to and take  photos of us! 

This unexpected interaction reminds me that if you are brave enough to do something even a little different from the norm, you can in turn make other people sit up and take notice!  You also give them permission to break from the norm themselves.  We don’t really care what people might say or think, and lie where we please, so we can capture the best angles of this architectural wonder!  People step around us and sometimes stop to talk. We attract the attention of a contingent of Spanish school kids, who gather around us in excitement and demand we take their photos.  ‘Calendar girl’, one of the pretty ones say to me, as she poses yet again for another shot.  Two local Turkish girls ask if they can be our friends on Facebook and I pass them my card!  

But our most interesting chat turns out to be with a few gentlemen travelling from Argentina.  Dressed  in traditional Muslim outfits, we had assumed they were Turkish and stopped to ask if we could take a few photos.  Imagine our surprise when we find out they are from a small Muslim community in Argentina.  We exchange emails, a few laughs and tell them of our travels in their home land.  Today, this little incident reminds me of how often, in life, we make erroneous assumptions about people just based on the way they look!  The time has flown by and we are late for our rendezvous with Victor and Em.  We rush back to the entrance and a  hot cup of coffee before heading out to unravel more secrets of Istanbul!

It is good to feel lost... because it proves you have a navigational sense of where "Home" is.  You know that a place that feels like being found exists.  And maybe your current location isn't that place but, Hallelujah, that unsettled, uneasy feeling of lost-ness just brought you closer to it.  ~Erika Harris

A Postcard from Istanbul!

Istanbul is fast becoming one of my favourite cities.  It is a cosmopolitan city that bridges the gap between Eastern traditions and Western thinking.  This became very apparent to me as we crossed continents from Asia to Europe on the ferry (after our overnight train trip) and made our temporary home in the European part of Turkey.

A last breakfast together and we were free to do our own thing!  We might have felt a little bereft except that Em, Yvonne, Victor and I would hang out, get lost, explore the bazaars, the palaces and mosques in this grand city for the next few days before we finally shed a few tears (Just one of us OK…and I’m not spilling any beans) & parted ways. 

The Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque are certainly highlights, but what captivates me most is this city itself!Istanbul is a city that has reinvented itself over and over.  I read a signpost that explains this well…. 

Istanbul like many other contemporary cities is in constant change and owes the fact it is a lively city to this.  Cities that always stay the same, cities that are motionless perish over time.  While many cities in the world perished because they could not renew themselves, Istanbul remained as one of the rare cities where life continued without interruption.  This change naturally brings destruction to the city, so we can consider destruction as one of the forms of existence of the city.  The concept of destruction is inevitable in a city but to erase this destruction and the destructed from the memories is equal to killing the city because the city is the sum of all its stories.  That’s why the destructions in the city are as important as its constructions and the architectural losses need to be kept actual.  Recalling these stories back to the memories of the citizens is important to creating a common consciousness about Istanbul. 

I love that Istanbul is a city that has thrived on change and reflect on the parallels in my own life.  The constant change I have experienced from the time I left home in my twenties for foreign shores, have enabled me to evolve and become the person I am today.  I feel I am who I am today, because like Istanbul I have been open to change, or evolved to incorporate the change that happened around me.  As I walk the streets of this city with my friends, I feel alive and happy to be in Istanbul and to have rediscovered my free spirit!  

“If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living”.  Gail Sheehy

Goodbye My Friends

It is our last night in Goreme and the last dinner we will have as a group.  Tomorrow we will catch the night train to Istanbul, our final destination on this Middle Eastern journey and the end of our travels as a group.  Some of us will continue on our individual journeys, while others will fly back home for Christmas. 

We have loads of fun together and as this bunch is mostly Australian, many of us hope to catch up once we are home next year.  I will miss walking down the streets with Yvonne, Em and Victor on our optional days off.  We shared many laughs and helped each other when needed, as if we had known each other for years.   (Thank you guys!)We would often be invited in for apple tea by shop owners, many who just wanted to chat and didn’t care if we never bought anything.  These interludes, helped us interact with the locals better and have left us with memories of the amazing hospitality of the Middle Eastern people. 

We dress up for our last dinner.  The theme is Middle Eastern and we do our best.  It is Zerena’s birthday and so we will celebrate with a cake and candles after our dinner of kebab testes! 

I am already looking forward to catching up with my new friends in Melbourne.  We were a mixed bunch of people, who ranged in age from the early twenties to early sixties, covering every decade between.  We had a shared love of travel and even found a few common threads between us.  My ‘small world’ theory is proven right again  when I discover that Robyn is the aunt of a friend (Emily) in Melbourne who I travelled to Europe with last year! 

We drink home brewed wine and toast Zerena for her birthday.  After dinner, the party spills over to a local cafe for more drinks, a bit of dancing and a few games of pool. 

And so I say goodbye to my friends and to Sarah. (although we still have that train trip and brekkie to go).   Sarah, who is originally from New Zealand, has been an amazing guide and shared with us her love for the Middle East and her zest for discovery.  I wish her well, as she continues her travels in Lebanon over her Christmas break.  

 A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.  ~Douglas Pagels

A Carpet Educational

Carpets are an essential part of the culture of the Middle East, so we couldn’t really leave Turkey without getting a Carpet Educational!

We are sitting around Tribal Collections, listening to Ruth, who shares her love for carpets with us.  Originally from New Zealand, has spent more than 20 years in Turkey engaged in the business of trading carpets.  She and her business partners spread out their carpets for us to enjoy, while she begins her stories.She tells us, carpets were generally made by women.  Often, they formed part of her dowry and her chances of landing a ‘good catch’ rested on her ability to weave a good carpet.   The Turkish carpets are bold and geometric as opposed to the Persian carpets which may have more scrolling. 

We learn how to tell one carpet from another.  People are always concerned with how many knots there are per inch, but the reality is that each village might have a different sized knot, so this comparison only works if you are comparing like with like.  The motifs and designs may not always have meaning.  They have been handed down from one generation to the next, and the women weaving the carpets today may not necessarily know what they once signified.  

Buying a carpet is very much an affair of the

heart.  In the end, you must just buy what you love.   Lying down on the carpet and getting a feel for its softness is one way to tell a good carpet.  Many people will sit on a chair and choose a carpet as they are laid out before them, but this is not how you go about it.  Try before you buy.  Be totally engaged in the process, as my friend Yvonne demonstrates here!   As with anything in life, looks can often be deceptive and all that glitters is not gold! 

Yvonne ends up with a tribal carpet which is my favourite type of carpet too.  The beauty of a tribal carpet is that it is woven by women on the move.  Women who don’t really care about perfection.  Often, she might change her mind about the colours she is using, there may be variations in the pattern, implying she is a spontaneous woman, in touch with her feelings.  It all also implies, she doesn’t give a damn what other people think!  She doesn’t care about the norms imposed by society and is just guided by her innermost feelings. 

A great way to live don’t you think?

Sadly, this nomadic tradition is slowly being lost as tribal life is replaced with city dwelling.  I have not done much shopping so far, and decide to purchase my Middle Eastern souvenir in Goreme. I purchase a baby sling, which would look lovely on a wall somewhere in my house, together with all the other treasures I’ve brought back over the years, from distant places.  These slings, once worn across a women’s back are no longer being made.  I think it will be a wonderful memento of my journey through the Middle East.

 People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.  ~Douglas Yates

A Walk down Love Valley

We take a stroll through the local village to walk through love valley.  The locals greet us as we pass and we get a little glimpse into their lives in this magic place. 

Love valley is aptly named.  The valley is dotted with phallic symbols that jut out of the landscape.  It is stunningly beautiful and walking through it gives us a completely different perspective to seeing it from the air.  It is good to get a bit of exercise and we enjoy the close up view of these fairy chimneys.   On the way back we visit the open air museum that was once the world’s oldest monastery.  It is quite amazing to realise how vast it must have been.  What a peaceful and spiritual place to meditate and contemplate life.

 

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.  ~Mother Teresa